introducing... Street Fighter 2!!!

Well hello there game room, looks like we have a new addition!

Back when I was researching my first DMD pin, I had wanted a Street Fighter 2.  It was decent fun, but also one of the least expensive DMD pins on the market.  Pretty much reviled for it's artwork and stop-and-go gameplay, I could look past those and really enjoy it when I played it on location.

I hadn't planned on having a third machine so soon, and will have to sell some stuff to cover the cost, but it came up suddenly and had to happen.

We took apart the connectors and removed the playfield.  Once you're taking off the head, it's not much effort to disconnect the playfield.  And moving it becomes downright reasonable at that point.
The head is heavy + awkward, but with 2 people it's an ease to get down the crazy stairs, likewise with the playfield.
The cabinet is HUGE, and every cabinet will be an awkward struggle, but DOABLE.  And, I could do it.  The weight was reduced enough that I was useful, hurray!

It was the weekend of the pinball expo, so my friend attached a few playfield connectors, and I said I'd do the backbox later.

The machine needs lots of TLC.  Behind the back glass we can see that most of the bulbs have charring:

Lucky for me, a friend bought a nice machine that was recently done over with LEDs.  With her purchase they gave her the bag of old bulbs, which she gifted to me:

These will come in handy!


This game has a lot of great shots.  Check the playfield below.  Starting at the left and going clockwise we have:
a hole
a half-orbit show
a ramp, that also opens as a subway
another hole
standup targets
a special "Guile" kick shot
a loop shot hit from the upper left flipper
another ramp, also opens as a subway
and then another hole
Successful completion of these shots, except the Guile and right ramp, stop the ball momentum, which is where it gets it's critique from.  This is not High Speed, sorry.

I set it up in the evening, verified the backbox connectors, and turned it on.  It booted OK, ball got ejected to shooter lane, and then.. . OMG FIRE ACK! 
I had the back glass off still and in the crack between the DMD and the light board I saw flames.   I darted to the cord, unplugged it, and verified the fire wasn't persistent.
It had just been a single transistor up in smoke, and I don't think it damaged the DMD nearby, but we will have to see once I swap in another driver board.
Luckily, they are relatively inexpensive, $100 at PBResource.

Ooops is brought to you by Erasers.

What could be the problem?  I went inside and found the issue:  My friend who had connected the playfield had swapped 2 cables, effectively giving 20 volts directly to a board input expecting a relay signal.

He graciously offered to send me his Gottlieb System 3 driver board.  I am hoping he will have an easy time replacing a handful of resistors, transistors and capacitors in the charred area, and my board will be back up and running and useful.


The rest of the machine, well, it's had a lot of neglect.  The playfield is mylared and in pretty good conditon, no cracked plastics.  Just LOTS of dust, some cobwebs, and a bunch of rust.
That means CLEANING PROJECT!

I have my Novus 2 + 1, my Millwax, and I was told about a great product called Evapo-Rust you can use to soak rust away from metal parts, and that will be very useful for the wireframes and rusty screws.

This backbox latch is TERRIBLE, pretty much useless.  I want to replace it with an actual funcitoning one.  Latches aren't something that should be fudged, people.

these not being attached added the death-trap feel of the playfield.

The playfield brackets were both very loose and that made getting inside rather difficult.  I eventually got the playfield up, propped on a metal rod.
All I could think of was that rod being shoddy, giving way and my new pinball machine snapping my spine like the mouth of a large mechanical dragon.

I used my telescoping magnet-on-a-stick in the cabinet to pull forth 2 screws that fell out and reconnected the slider bracket thingies.  PROGRESS!


But a weird thing I noticed in the cabinet...
The front grounds were cut!  And not busted, obviously sliced through with wire cutters.  WHHHHYYYYYYYYYYY?
Why on earth would you do that? 
Look at all of the things it connects to.  The cabinet, the legs, the lockdown bar...
Suspicious.   Any thoughts?

what could possibly go wrong???